John Hutson, the dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center and a Navy veteran, said Sen. Hillary Clinton might have problems dealing with the uniformed military if she were elected president.
“The military, I think generally, wasn’t wild about President (Bill) Clinton, and I think there will be a great deal of skepticism about another President Clinton,” he said in a conference call with reporters today.
Hutson, who retired as a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy and has testified before Congress several times, endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for president yesterday.
Hutson criticized Clinton’s recent vote for the Kyle-Lieberman amendment, which labelled Iran’s Republican Guard a terrorist organization. Clinton has said she voted for the amendment because it gave the United States bargaining power with the Iranian goverment by empowering America to go after the Republican Guard’s financial assets around the world.
Obama, who was absent from the vote but said he would have voted against it, said the amendment could be used as justification by President Bush for attacking Iran.
For Hutson, the difference illustrated a larger point about possible Clinton and Obama adminstrations.
“I think Kyle-Lieberman is misguided, let’s put it that way, so I think voting for Kyle-Lieberman is not the way to go,” Hutson said today.
